UPDATE (22/9/22): TWO MONTHS LATE & MILLIONS OF POUNDS - SEE Monster Art Project Named As Part of "Festival of Brexit" With Lib Dem Councillor As Promoter

 

Liberal Democrats Robbing Public Money

One of our Official emblems

UPDATE (22/9/22) 

The Weston Mercury has reported the further delay to SEE Monster, on top of the other delays and huge expense to the taxpayer. We revealed the cost, which could go higher.

We gave those figures to the Weston Mercury, as they said they wanted to do a story on our investigation.

Today, we have asked the Mercury's reporter Charlie Williams why they have not quoted our figures, which were evidenced and sourced.

Somerset Independents is holding Somerset's councillors and MPs to account, in the public interest. It seems that we also need to hold the media outlets to account too.

You may be interested to know that the Weston Mercury is making its editor, Paul Jones, redundant. The source for this information is himself, via his own Twitter account.

The Festival of Brexit has also made its way into recent Private Eye lampoons.

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Somerset Independents puts residents first. We investigated and published the cost of Weston-super-Mare's "SEE Monster" arts project. Councillors at North Somerset Council did not want residents to know. 

The Chair of the Council's Scrutiny committee - a Liberal Democrat councillor - failed to find out the cost and had complained about the project to the Weston Mercury reporter Charlie Williams who has published his comments:

However, some councillors have become restless with the organiser's 'lack of communication and unwillingness to come clean'. 

Senior town and district councillor and chair of North Somerset's scrutiny panel, John Crockford-Hawley, said: "I'm not one of the councillors directly involved in the See Monster project, so I wouldn't wish to speculate about reasons for the obvious delay in bringing remaining platform stages to the Tropicana. 

While I have no substantive reason for doubting See Monster's eventual arrival in the latter part of this summer, nor do I doubt its potential benefit to Weston, I do believe the recent minimalist approach to communication by New Substance has somewhat undermined public confidence, and led to a degree of sceptical social media chatter.

I look forward to improved public information and the project's eventual success."

Now Somerset Independents have had it confirmed by "The House" magazine that SEE Monster is funded by the "Festival of Brexit". 

 

Brexit

 

They name SEE Monster as part of a "Carnival of Brexit" in an article sub-titled "How The Government's £120m 'Festival Of Brexit' Went Rogue".

We asked questions to another Liberal Democrat Councillor Mark Canniford, who is a member of the Cabinet on the Council and is a ward colleague of the Chair of Scrutiny. But Cllr Canniford seems unaware of his ward colleague's criticisms, and has been chief promoter of SEE Monster.

This is duplicity that is typical of Liberal Democrats. Even ward colleagues who are in the same ward and in the same party contradict each other in public to suit themselves. 

We asked Cllr Crockford-Hawley - how can a Liberal Democrat scrutinise another Liberal Democrat in the Cabinet? He failed to give an answer although he confirmed that he does speak to Cllr Canniford.

Unlike his ward colleague and Lib Dem Party colleague, Councillor Canniford has openly hyped up the project and has been unapologetic about it. 

We asked Cllr Canniford some questions. He (kind of) attempted to answer our questions but has admitted that council staff and council time are being used and that it costs council money. Cllr Canniford has claimed that the costs are being paid for by the project. We are making more enquiries.

When challenged by us, Councillor Canniford also stated in public that he "would not apologise" for promoting Weston with SEE Monster.

Now it has been revealed that the millions for SEE Monster have come from a "Festival of Brexit".

So is it OK to take Festival of Brexit money to hype up a delayed and expensive arts project, but to oppose Brexit as a Liberal Democrat, as mentioned in "The House" article?

It seems more than a little hypocritical to us. This is why we use the above and below graphic to describe the Liberal Democrats. They hate it, which is why we know that it works.

Duplicity to Get Public Money

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